Overmedication of Parkinsonism patient

[vicki]

My mother is 79 years old and was diagnosed with Vascular parkinsonism about 3 months ago. Her symptoms included minor trembling and gait disturbances. Her regular neurologist suspected Parkinson's in November and started her on Senimet in December, 2 weeks after her surgery for cervical stenosis which was discovered through his process of elimination in diagnosing the Parkinson's. He added Comtan a month later. She went to a Parkinson's specialist March who determined it was Vascular parkinsonism due to 3 small strokes that showed on her MRI. He did not change her medications. The senimet seemed to be controling her hypertension which she as had problems with for years. Her history also includes 3 lumbar fusions. She has been taking low doses of Prozac and Valium for several years. She also takes Darvicet regularly for pain. Her codition had deteriorated over the past several months. She uses a walker most of the time because her balance is off and she has spells of weakness. She is what is called a "wall walker" when she doesn't have her walker. She is increasingly forgetful, and sleeps sometimes 14-18 hours a day. She is ruled by her medications and I seem to be the only one concerned about her taking too much medication. I feel the Valium, Prozac, and Senimet are working against each other and making her worse. I want to know if taking her off any of these medications would increase her quality of life. She is a type A personality and cannot do hardly anything at this point. It makes her feel so worthless, and she's not. I feel that the drugs are limiting her more that her physical problems. Thank you for your time,. Vicki

[CCF Neuro[P] MD, RPS]

Dear Vicki:

I would suggest that you tell your mother's neurologist about the problem.  It may be drug effects and I would try and see if modication tuning-up might help your mother.  But, I would also try and make sure that she did not have another vascular event.

Sincerely,

CCF Neuro MD

[SS]

Dear Vicki,
My father has Parkinson's also. And and one point he got much worse quickly. He like many people with Parkinson's got depressed and anxious. He was taking sinemet, a anti-anxiety and prozac. It turned out that he was totally over medicated! Sometimes he took too much thinking his symptoms
were worse and did not realize he was making them worse. Now he is off the prozac and takes an anti-anxiety occasionally and is 100% better!!! Look into it. It can become a cycle.